


Solo Gifts

by DDBB19



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Empathy, I Don't Even Know, K-Day, Past Battles, Prompt - Psychics, Solo Piloting, Telekinesis, Telepathy, The Drift, What Was I Thinking?, Will post more as they happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4809872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DDBB19/pseuds/DDBB19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During Solo-Piloting, or Solo-Drifting with a Kaiju brain in Newt's case, Stacker Pentecost, Raleigh Becket and Newton Geiszler gain unnatural abilities. Either they realise it straight away or they wait until it happens by accident. </p><p> Typical Shatterdome shenanigans happen in the lead up to the closure of the Breach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've edited and added some stuff because it didn't sit right with me.  
> Don't get me wrong, I wrote it after being awake for more than 24 hours.  
> So, I'm really hoping this is slightly better.  
> If not, please, please, TELL ME! 
> 
> _
> 
> Prompt – Accidental Psychics  
> Surviving the neural load from piloting solo produces some unusual results. Stacker is an empath (super-charisma!), Raleigh is telekinetic, and Newton is a telepath, except no one knows because none of them bring it up until Raleigh has an accident in the cafeteria and food trays (and possibly people) go flying. Emotional outbursts can trigger these abilities, so Raleigh has developed his fuzzy-sweater-zen in order to cope but has not had the energy or will to learn real control. Author can decide pairings, who lives, who dies and when the reveal takes place and what effects it has on the movie. +1 if Raleigh uses his ability to save someone from falling off the wall. +5 if Raleigh mentally undresses someone with his brain, literally.  
> _  
> The prompt was from an anonymous person. God, I hope I'm doing this right and I really hope I don't let you down because I've never seen this prompt done before and this is my first try at it.
> 
> Let's just see how this chapter goes and then I'll think about expanding on it.  
> We'll see if it's any good and I'd really appreciate feedback, to see if I'm on the right track.  
> Newt's gonna be really nuts to write but if this goes well, I'll be doing his next.

When Stacker was younger, not a child but not yet a man, he took great interest in watching other people for their tells. He didn’t have to see red-rimmed eyes and tear tracks or the anguish on someone’s face to know that they were in a stage of mourning. He didn’t have to see the cold edge in someone’s gaze and the flush of red in their cheeks to know that someone was angry.  
 He could tell by the way they carried themselves. The crossing of arms, a defeated posture, slouched shoulders and curved spine, their body folding in on themselves. The rigidity of the back and shoulders, the tension pulsing in their necks, the throbbing veins at their temples and hands, flexing into fists and back out again. He really didn’t need to watch their faces, because their bodies told him everything.  
 He got good at it, great even, and when he was sent to military school, he became brilliant at it. It was the one thing that taught him when to press and when to step back, especially when dealing with soldiers.

 Joining the Royal Air Force was another learning curve, not that there was much to learn. He done his duty, pressed his superiors or retreated when he knew he had to. It became second nature and it’d serve him for years to come.

 

 In May of 2016, Stacker Pentecost and his co-pilot, Tamsin Sevier along with their Mark-1 Jaeger, Coyote Tango were deployed to Tokyo. They fought and took down the Kaiju, codename; Onibaba, during which, Tamsin lost consciousness. He piloted solo for three hours. He’d saved one little girl that day. The rest of the population had all but been obliterated in Onibaba’s destruction spree.  
  Afterwards, he’d been told that if he were to set foot into a Jaeger due to the toll on his mind and body as well as the cancer, he’d die; no questions asked, and both were retired as Rangers. Once this had all become hindsight and he’d settled into his role of PPDC Command as Marshal, he discovered a new ability. Whether it was due to the Drift or piloting solo, he doesn’t know but he keeps quiet about it in any case.  
  Now, as Marshal, he must set a standard for conduct and how the people of the PPDC must act at any given time. Thanks to this, he’s seen as a hard-ass who doesn’t have time for niceties. That, however, is not the case.  
  He’s an empath. It’s as simple as that. Thanks to his empathy, he is affected by the energies of others. He has the ability to intuitively feel and perceive other people. Through this, he’s gotten his poker face down to a T! Being an empath isn’t just about being able to feel and change or influence the emotions of others. Empaths are aware of physical sensitivities and spiritual urges, as well as knowing the motivations and intentions of other people.  
 As a man of great self-control, he learned how to shield himself, how to keep his feelings and such to himself, and how to wield it like a hanbō in the kwoon.

Thanks to the empathy, he’d been able to come to terms with ex-Ranger Sevier’s cancer diagnosis, as she had come to terms with it herself. Two years later, he’d asked his co-pilot what she wanted him to do. She told him to move on, to live, instead of bringing himself down with her and so, he adopted young Mako Mori, the same child he’d saved from Onibaba’s reign of terror.  
  As you can imagine, or not, adopting a child with that kind of emotional distress can be quite difficult without the added ability to feel the terror pouring off of her.  
At first, it’d been extremely difficult because he’d been used to shielding himself from crowds. Having to do so with one person was much harder, but he braved himself through it. She taught, and helped him, just as much as he’d helped her. He gave her a safe place, a parental figure or mentor and something to focus on, and she unknowingly gave him the experience and control to deal with smaller amounts of people.  
 Nights were the worst. After he’d put a young Mako to bed, he’d return to his office quite a ways away to get some more paperwork done. The first time it happened, he could feel the fear and grief but didn’t know what it was until someone reported through the comms that they could hear screaming from his family quarters three corridors over. He ditched his paperwork and sprinted to get to Mako before she could fully wake. The amount of fear built with every step he took closer to her.  
  He pushed himself through it and when he got there, he flicked the light switch and could see her wrapped up and trapped in the blankets because of her tossing and turning. Sweat on her brow, her face painting the perfect picture of horror. He strode forward and grasped her by both shoulders and shook her as hard as he dared for her small, fragile frame. She gasped and launched herself upright and she would have gone off the end if he hadn’t still had a hold of her shoulders. She practically flew into his arms and wrapped hers around his waist, burying her face in his chest as she broke down into body-wracking sobs. He felt the prickling of tears in his own eyes because he was a parent in every sense of the word, and he didn’t know how to help her. In late 2018, the ‘world-renowned’ psychologist that he’d hired had repeatedly assured him that Mako was coming to terms with what had happened.  
  He gave it time, four more weeks of therapy, two hour sessions every day just in case it was a normal regression. It didn’t get any better, it had only gotten worse and after witnessing what she’d gone through every night, he tore into the psychologist and fired her.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Mr. Pentecost.” She told him.  
 “What I am saying, Ms. Colligen, is that your therapy has done nothing to benefit Miss Mori. She’s still waking up every single night, screaming. She received therapy during her time at the orphanage and she was doing a great deal better there, than she was here.” He chuckled humourlessly, “This is a Shatterdome, ma’am. It’s one of the safest places on the planet with our Jaeger’s standing guard and yet, she doesn’t feel safe here anymore. Why is that? Why is it that a fifteen year old girl doing well in therapy and in the Shatterdome regresses as soon as you begin your therapy sessions? Have you read through her file, from one cover to the next?”  
 “I don’t speak or read Japanese, Mr. Pentecost.” The woman had looked thoroughly confused.  
 “Then why on Earth does it list Japanese as one of your chosen languages?” Realisation had set in then. “You’re just another idiot looking for more publicity. Tokyo’s Daughter handed to you on a silver platter because of your profession and your status within. I will tell you this once, and only once, Ms. Colligen.” He leaned in close to whisper, “If I hear about or see you within three miles of any PPDC facility, I will give the order to have you shot on sight! Never mind being court marshalled, you have disrespected your status, your profession, the PPDC, myself and you have severely traumatised Miss Mori, and on top of her emotional state, which makes it all the worse.” His tone was sharp and biting, “Pack up your things and I will have you escorted off the premises.”  
 The woman looked terrified, but to do that to a child concerning their most emotional memories was unthinkable and downright disgusting in any capacity.

  When ‘Knifehead’ hit the Alaskan coast in February, 2020 and they lost all Jaeger transmissions from Gispy Danger, he let himself panic for all of two seconds. He had to bring his shields up faster and make them more solid than ever due to the hundreds panicking around him. That was their first successful failure, and by that, it means that they’d sent one too few Jaegers out to the Alaskan coast but the Jaeger still killed the Kaiju at the cost of a pilot’s life. Granted, Rangers Becket had saved everyone on that boat as well as protecting the coast, but a pilot’s life is literally a lifeline to the coast they’re guard.  
  It had taken a total of eight hours to find the Jaeger and that was only because a kid had been told to get help from his Grandfather, but the choppers had to take a detour because of the storm and the immense fog. There was no telling when Raleigh had actually hit the beach. The older man hadn’t checked the time because he was too busy making sure Raleigh didn’t die in the snow and sand.  
  Stacker stood aside as the Ranger was rushed into medical. He opened up his shields to get a sense on the man’s emotional state and was left thoroughly confused when he got nothing from him. As he was looking, he could see that there was a man there but when he was feeling, it was as if there was nothing but a big gaping hole where he should be. Although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, Marshal Pentecost was horrified. If that was how it felt after one co-pilot was torn away mid-drift, he prayed no one else ever found out.  
 Sure, pilots lost their co-pilots every now and then but never had any outlived a broken drift for more than a few minutes afterwards. By the looks of things, Raleigh had managed to pilot and kill the Kaiju as well as getting the Jaeger back to shore solo. How he felt for his Ranger.  
 And when he had to discharge him for misconduct and insubordination, the only feeling from the pilot was relief.

  Through the years, Stacker used his empathy to gain a certain edge in circumstances that he absolutely needed to go his way. If he hadn’t, the world would have died long before 2025 could come round.

 Just looking at the remaining Becket of the once famous Becket Brothers brought back those memories, except now, he had feelings from the man, no matter how small or distorted they were.  
 “Haven’t you heard, Mr. Becket?” He knew he was being manipulative. “The world is coming to an end. So, where would you rather die? _Here or in a Jaeger?_ ”  
 He’d never felt so much rage from one person. Raleigh wasn’t stupid, he knew when he was being played but if Stacker had to guess, he’d say that it’s the first time he’d seen life in baby Becket’s eyes since Knifehead. He’d also go into unchartered territory and guess that Raleigh would rather die the same way his brother had, by killing Kaiju.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lead up to Newt's new found telepathic ability.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some Newt action now.  
> I think I done pretty well with this considering.  
> Most info is taken from PR's wikia or the movie's novelization.  
> I really hope you enjoy it.  
> Feedback is appreciated.

  Doctor Newton Geiszler was barely a man when the world started crumbling. As a fan of manga and monsters movies, his interest in both areas piqued concerning all areas of science, except physics. He left that up to Doctor Hermann Gottlieb when they began communicating due to the formation of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps.  
 As the second youngest student to ever be admitted to MIT, he had six doctorates by 2015. He’d been teaching at MIT for over six years, too. Once and still a student himself, he’d been in the students’ positions before, so he knew what they were thinking throughout the semesters.   
 In 2016, he pioneered, enthusiastically, in artificial tissue replication and in the same year, he joined the Jaeger Academy. Don’t get the wrong impression. Just because he’s a man of science doesn’t mean he was allowed to bail on the first stage of Jaeger training. He had to work hard at it, but barely got halfway through the physicals when the Corps decided he’d be better off working within his area of expertise without the added pressure of all the testing and so, K-Science was born. The man just wasn’t built for the strenuous activity that pilots in training go through. At least he could say he tried. Through all this, he continued his written correspondence with Dr. Gottlieb, who’d begun his own K-Science division.  
 When 2017 came round, both Doctors decided it’d be best if they were to finally meet face to face. It was not as he’d expected at all. Their written messages were enthusiastic, encouraging and the discussions through their mutual respect and love of sciences was easy. Meeting in person for the first time sent them both into a tail spin of sharp words, barked insults and dislike of the worst kind.   
 People always assumed they’d parted ways and hadn’t contacted each other since that first meeting, but they were wrong. Who in their right mind would ever pass up the opportunity to bounce ideas off of a great mind similar to their own? Newton would have been extremely stupid to let his dislike of someone get in the way of saving the world and he knew that Hermann thought the exact same thing. No matter how much they disliked each other, their written communications continued.  
 As 2020 approached, both Geiszler and Gottlieb were assigned to the Hong Kong Shatterdome. It had the largest and most resourceful K-Science division. It’s Newton’s job to find weaknesses in their enemies and relay that information to their pilots to aid in the down-taking of Kaiju. As a scientist and engineer, Newton invented the ‘Milking Machine,’ a device that extracts noxious chemicals from Kaiju glands for specialised classification. It made his work dissecting the Kaiju much easier in some aspects.   
Due to funding cuts from the UN, October 12, 2024 marked the beginning of the end of the Jaeger programme with Anchorage Shatterdome being shut down and sold off to a private buyer and the others soon to follow. The UN had given the Marshal eight months worth of funding and permission to move the remaining Jaegers to Hong Kong. Sydney and Vladivostok were amongst the last. From over eight active Shatterdomes down to one in the last weeks of the war was like a kick in the gut and the odds were against them. K-Science was worse; they’d been cut from hundreds to two. As the first two in, Geiszler and Gottlieb were to be the last two standing.  
 In the last months of war, early 2025, Newton collects all the Kaiju samples he can. He believes that one must study and break something down completely in order to understand it. In these instances, he’s very much thrilled at being elbow deep in Kaiju guts, methodically cutting them up to get down to their DNA bases.   
 The last week of war had caught up to him, although he didn’t know it then, and Gottlieb was presenting his algorithm to the Pentecost and Hansen-1. Newton interrupted telling them that Hermann couldn’t tell them anything solid about the Kaiju themselves and presented samples he’d gathered since he could. Upon seeing the similarities of the Kaiju, he came to the conclusion that the Kaiju were clones. Suggesting a drift between a piece of Kaiju brain and himself excited him in a way nothing else ever had, but seeing what he thought was horror on the faces of his colleagues, as well as the verbal denial from the Marshal only dampened his spirits a tiny bit. Newt didn’t know that when the Marshal left, Hansen had stayed around to get a sense on what he would do and how he would take it.

 Hermann told him he wouldn’t be able to do it, and Newt was all the more determined to prove him wrong, and prove him wrong, he did!

 He spent the entire night constructing an improvised Pons setup, had his breakfast and set up his handheld audio recorder. _Fortune favours the brave,_ on repeat in his thoughts.   
 “Oh eight hundred hours,” he said into the mike. “Kaiju/human Drift Experiment. Take one.” He set off, setting everything else up, seemingly speaking to himself. Attaching the squid cap to himself, he double checked everything else over.  
 “Unscientific aside, Hermann. If you’re listening to this, I’m either alive and proving what I’ve just done, in which case ha! I won. Or I’m dead and you need to know that it’s you who drove me to this, and it’s all your fault. In which case ...ha! I won. Kind of.”  
Keeping the recorder on, he rested his finger and thumb against the activation switch and braced himself.  
 “I’m going in ...five, four, three, two ...one!”  
  Falling unconscious afterwards was not in his plans. However, you can’t drift with a hive mind and expect to stay conscious for long. Coming back into consciousness, he can hear what sounds like Hermann shouting at him but when he opens his eyes, Hermann’s mouth is closed in a tight lipped grimace. He’d barely begun to feel human again. The intensity of the Drift wasn’t something he’d ever been prepared for and he didn’t know how pilots did it more than once. The afterimages of heaving organics seas, ranks of birthing chambers, the skewed sensory spectrum of the Kaiju’s consciousness... all of that made it a little more difficult to concentrate, never mind the fact that when Pentecost stepped into the lab, both him and Hermann were shouting at him, with no words spoken out loud.  
 The explanation of what he saw was much longer than he anticipated considering he was getting four lots of feedback; what they were physically saying, and what they weren’t. It was confusing, so confusing but he didn’t open his mouth about it. It was the only thing that he kept to himself, something not of importance to the mission but what could be very damaging to him, as a person and scientist.  
 The following days were hectic on his mind. The Drift hangover from his experiment didn’t help at all. He looked over his shoulder every few minutes, felt chills spread down his spine as if he’d been watched by something that wasn’t there. Venturing out of the lab and into Hong Kong’s Boneslum was torture. Having to focus on his mission instead of the thousands of thoughts practically floating around in the spaces between people, Newt was a little more than shaken when he reached Hannibal Chau.    
 Save the world first, and then he’d explore this new ability, scientifically. He wouldn’t have any fun with it, _at all._ Nope, he wouldn’t.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here comes Raleigh!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleh!   
> This isn't as good as it could've been, but that's the way it's supposed to be.  
> We get to the real beginning in the next chapter.
> 
> Enjoy!

 As a child, Raleigh spent the majority of his free time playing superhero with his big brother, Yancy. They spent most of their time making armoured costumes, with capes and prowling through abandoned factories in whichever country they came to, armed with their mother’s lighter and a flashlight, keeping ‘evil at bay.’ Or they’d be seen hanging out with and annoying their sister to no end.  
Then K-Day happened.  
 All three were glued to the television, watching with something akin to horror and fascination as the beast rose from the water and took the Golden Gate Bridge down in a matter of seconds. They were among millions watching Trespassers attack on San Francisco. Not long afterwards, their mother was diagnosed with cancer and kept smoking right up until she died when Raleigh was sixteen. Their father, if you could call him that, left them to care for their younger sister, Jazmine, after their mother’s funeral. He just disappeared and they hadn’t seen him since. Raleigh didn’t even know if the guy was alive, not that he particularly cared. Any man willing to dump the responsibility of raising his children to his oldest child wasn’t worth the time of day.   
 In 2016, Jazmine was nearing seventeen and Yancy was twenty-one, Raleigh was eighteen and the boys signed up for the Jaeger Academy. They would have taken Jazmine with them but she refused, said something about them doing their bit and her having to help in her own way too. They’d never actually taken themselves seriously when they said they’d become pilots. Raleigh thought they’d give it a shot and if they washed out, they could put that good working with their hands to the test instead. Neither of them had seen Jaz since their goodbye and they didn’t expect to. It hurt, it really did. She was their baby sister and neither of them knew whether she was alive or not. They were family; they were supposed to stick together.  
  Despite their doubts, they made it through the first and second stages of training. The third stage was crazy, in Raleigh’s opinion. Experiencing a Drift on its’ own with no Jaeger as a buffer was weird. Yes, they were compatible. They did just about everything together as children and that made their Drifting smoother. They’d witnessed others coming out of the Drift dazed and embarrassed, but that was mainly between male and female pairs or non-related pairs. They hadn’t hidden anything from each other growing up and they didn’t do it in the Drift. As brothers and best friends, it shot them straight to the top with their simulation scores, until it didn’t.  
  Raleigh genuinely thought Naomi liked him. He was blind to her interest being in pilots. To her, it didn’t matter if they were in training or veterans. When it came down to it, she was a Jaeger Fly through and through, and when he glimpsed the happenings between his brother and Naomi, he pulled them out of the Drift and disappeared. Yancy caught up with him and demanded he be allowed to explain. The explanation didn’t go too well considering they almost destroyed the bar. But they were siblings and siblings don’t get along sometimes. Pentecost wasn’t happy with them at all, but it didn’t matter because Raleigh seen it as a betrayal. Yancy saw it as pushing his brother into taking what he wanted before anyone else can get there.

  As the Anchorage Shatterdome is established, Rangers Becket are assigned the Mark-3 Jaeger, Gipsy Danger and what a sight she is. Gazing up at her for the first time, their breaths are stolen and everything else is shut out. It’s just Raleigh and Yancy, and their girl. Their assignment, in 2017, from Anchorage was to hold the Alaskan coastline. Between Gipsy Danger’s launch date and December 31st, 2020, the brother’s took down four Kaiju.  
  February 29th, 2020 was a tragedy. Yancy woke up for the last time and Raleigh could barely function afterwards. When medical declared him physically fit for duty not even a month after he piloted Gipsy to shore solo, they tried to shove him into a simulator with someone, not his brother, he went nuclear. Full mental breakdown filled with physical violence and it took Gipsy’s crew and Tendo to calm him down. He barely knew left from right, back from front and they were already trying to... It doesn’t bear to think about.   
 The crew gathered around him like a shield, glaring and staring disgusted holes in Pentecost. He’d glared at the Marshal that day as the man tried to order him into the simulator with someone else.  
 “With all due respect, Marshal, take your orders and shove ‘em, unless you can bring my brother back from the dead. Do you want another mentally crippled Ranger? Is that why you’re putting me in there with someone else?” The minute widening of Pentecost’s eyes were enough to tell him that he’d surprised the man. Stacker told him then and there that if he didn’t get into the simulation, he’d be discharged. All Raleigh could feel in that moment was relief.   
 He left the day after that and didn’t wait for the discharge papers. Just took their tags, Yancy’s photos and a small duffle of clothes and left, no looking back.

  The first year away from the PPDC was rough. He’d be doing his reps or making food, not that he ate much, and he’d see Yancy, watching him in disappointment. He’d hear his brother shouting at him, asking what he was doing, shouting that he didn’t die so that Raleigh could sit around wasting away on his lazy ass. He’d learned to tune him out, gloss over him as if he weren’t there at all, and eventually, he only appeared whenever Raleigh was in serious trouble. As time wore on, Raleigh blocked out a lot of things and just went from day to day, until he started working on the Anti-Kaiju Wall. He couldn’t ignore the people dying on it every day. The top was the most dangerous and he volunteered for it when the foreman said he was being moved up to make room for the newbies. It was roughly the height of a Jaeger and he felt closer to his brother up there.   
 Halfway through 2024 was a memorable day, although he didn’t notice it at first. The person on the beam below the one Raleigh was working on, slipped and Raleigh couldn’t see any remnants of snapped gear, meaning the person hadn’t anchored their harness in. His first instinct was to reach out and grab, but the person was easily too far down for that and he had welding gear in his hands. He couldn’t tell you what it was, but something snapped in his mind that day, not that he noticed, and slowed the persons descent enough that he had time to get a hold of a beam and steady himself before climbing back to his post and continuing with the days’ work.  
 It happened again, a couple of dozen times after that, especially with the people around his area of work. Sometimes it was the same person and sometimes it wasn’t. When it happened for the ninth time, Raleigh finally realised that he was the one keeping them from their deaths. It was as if he’d gotten a sixth sense for the people around him, he didn’t even have to take his eyes off his work, just let his mind react on instinct. He knew what it was, but wasn’t interested in developing it past that.  
  January 1st, 2025 and Raleigh’s working the top of the Wall. At lunch, he watched as Mutavore, a category IV Kaiju, launched its’ assault on Australia’s Coastal Wall after taking down Echo Saber and Vulcan Spectre. Someone had captured the footage on their phone and anyone could see that decommissioning Striker Eureka the day before was a completely stupid idea and it left the entire country vulnerable. To Raleigh, the suits were a bunch of greedy, uptight assholes. Hearing the blades of a Sikorsky, a small single rotor transport and feeling the winds from the helicopter landing brought back memories of Gipsy’s Strike Crew. He shook himself out of it and stepped forward to meet the Marshal. He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t know what the man was there for. He’d seen on the news, every Kaiju attack, every Jaeger taken down, and a boulder of guilt, self-loathing, grief and dread set into the pit of his stomach.   
 The words the Marshal spouted about dying, as if he were giving him a choice. He was a Ranger himself at some point, so he must have known exactly how an old Jaeger Jockey wanted to go. Man, did he want to go. His mother was dead, his father presumed dead, he hadn’t heard from Jaz for years and his brother was forcibly torn from his brain. He had no one left, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he knew he’d have to let someone else in, just so he could go down the way his brother did. Out there, in the water, fighting Kaiju, in her! _Gipsy Danger!  
  _ But he walked away. He got a hole punched in his ration card and got himself a can of beer. His family would want him to live. They wouldn’t want him throwing his life away in a half-cocked plan to give the Kaiju all that they’ve got in one last ditch effort to save the world. He removed his coat and carried it over his shoulder on the way to a clear patch of table where he slung it across his stool.  
  Yet, he could hear his brother screaming at him, “Get your ass out there and into that chopper, Ranger. You’re a Becket, for fuck’s sake, the Kaiju started this fight and you better fucking finish it!”  
When he looked up, he caught Miles’ eye and saw the flush of anger on his cheeks and the glint of malice in his eyes.   
 “Flyboy! And here I thought we might be losing you to your fancy military friend. Oh hey, that reminds me. How many Jaeger’s does it take to change a light bulb? None! ‘Cause these day, everybody knows they can’t change a thing.”  
 Something else in Raleigh’s mind snapped that day. He took a step toward Miles, beer in hand.  
 “Easy, boy,” Miles said. “Don’t you forget, I’m the one in charge around here.” He sat down and kept his eyes on Raleigh.  
That smirk he’d use on anyone beating on his brother was back and he raised his beer, “Then let’s drink to that.” He took a sip then set the can down in front of Miles, leaning over a little to put it calmly on the table. He sat down and Miles clapped his shoulder as soon as he was within reach. Miles asked about a beer for himself and Raleigh pointed to the can he took a sip of and told him that that was it.  
 Calm as ever, Raleigh reached up and grabbed the back of Miles’ head and slammed him, face first onto the can. Foam sprayed everywhere but Raleigh didn’t care. Miles fell sideways out of his chair, holding his nose and trying to stem the blood-flow. Someone laughed, some looked like they were going to back Miles and then someone clapped and that caught on. Everything came to a halt as he stood slowly, grinning down at Miles. His voice was stronger than it’d been since Knifehead.  
 “My name is Ranger Raleigh Becket; you’d do well to remember that, Miles. When it comes down to it, the Jaeger’s are the only things keeping this world, keeping you alive so show some fucking respect.”  
 “So, why’ve you been here the last year or so?” Someone asked.  
“My co-pilot, my _brother_ , gave up his life to save ten that our superior deemed collateral. You’ve heard about what happens when you pilot solo? Think about that on top of feeling your brother die in your head! Those men and women, Rangers, dead and alive have given up everything from their fertility to their futures to make sure you still have a world to live in, respect is the least you could do.”

 “Ranger Becket.”  
Raleigh snapped to attention and turned to meet the eyes of the Marshal. Around him, Raleigh could see the Strike Crew of Gipsy Danger pushing people back, establishing a perimeter around him and Pentecost. As Pentecost’s eyes snapped to someone behind Raleigh and back again with a reflection of urgency, Raleigh heard the rustle of clothing and waited for the hand to clamp down on his shoulder. With the slightest nod from Pentecost, he slipped back into the training that’d been drilled into him through the Academy and beat the shit out of Miles. With all said and done, he straightened up to their old chant growing steadily louder. Another nod from Pentecost and he joined their shouts.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raleigh has a bit of a temper and Chuck gets a tongue lashing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I wrote this in the last 2 hours.  
> I'm hoping it's not too bad.

 Whiskey Gamma, part of Gipsy’s Strike Crew went off course when all air craft were in the air. Raleigh could only guess at where they were going. He couldn’t remember much from the first six months after Knifehead, so he couldn’t tell you if it was anything to do with him, but he assumed it was something from Choi, if he was still with the Corps, that is. Apparently, the Strike Troop didn’t think it was appropriate to bring their pilot in without a proper escort and demanded they be allowed on the retrieval.

  Being almost surrounded by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot’s Jumphawks almost blocked out the already limited view to Hong Kong’s PPDC compound, but Raleigh managed just fine. From the air, Hong Kong looked unaffected by the Kaiju but Rals could see that that wasn’t the case, especially going by the massive Kaiju bones that had settled into the heart of Kowloon.   
 In the aftermath of any attack that leaves a Kaiju carcass, property values in the polluted and surrounding areas plummeted. Usually, governments prohibit habitation in these areas due to the high toxicity of Kaiju remains, but some people, like in Hong Kong, move in and build their homes from the ground up. Not many people did this, but this was Hong Kong and the people were like corral. They grew in and around the bones, almost organically.

  As the chopper touched down, Raleigh and Pentecost stepped down onto the tarmac. Raleigh watched W.T.F head off to their official docking stations until Pentecost cleared his throat. Raleigh was full of questions as they crossed the helipad to what looked like the commands centre. He had questions; questions that Pentecost wouldn’t answer from Alaska to Hong Kong, via three refuelling stations.   
 Why him? What Mark-3? Why hunt down the guy you grounded and then watched walk away after roughly five years? The academies were still producing Rangers, although there were fewer Jaegers to pilot. They were being redirected into other sections of the PPDC or elsewhere.

 Pentecost had barely said two words on the ride over. That guy was great company; the same as always. Raleigh would have slept on the way over but ever since Knifehead, he’d discovered that insomnia had a funny way of fucking you over. So, instead of falling down the mental pathways to never ending rabbits, he replayed the fight with Miles over and over, barely keeping his laugh to himself at times.   
 All of that was behind him though. Here he was in Hong Kong, a Ranger looking for a co-pilot.

 Passing the open doors of a cargo plane, Raleigh did a double-take as he watched a group of pilots guide a huge tank filled with part of a Kaiju brain in it. He had seen images in training, but he still had to stop himself from throwing up. It was nothing like a human brain, nothing like it at all. Kaiju brains looked like a deformed octopus but with more tentacles, raddled with unusual fibrous extrusions and tumours. To sum it up; disgusting. He shook his head and kept walking.   
 They were walking towards a young Japanese woman holding two umbrellas. As she bowed to Pentecost, Raleigh noticed a uniform he didn’t recognise. Straightening backup, she glanced at Raleigh.  
 “Mr. Becket, this is Mako Mori. She’s one of our brightest, has been for years now and she’s in charge of the Mark-3 Restoration Project.”  
Mako bowed to Raleigh as well, not as deeply, but it still surprised him.   
 “Honoured to meet you,” she said.  
 “Don’t be. I’m a washed-up has-been that got his brother killed. There is no honour in that,” he replied.  
 She started speaking Japanese and it took a minute for Raleigh to put it together.  
  _“I imagined him differently,”_ she told Pentecost.   
They waited at the door of the cargo lift. Distant pings and groans from its shaft mingled with the sounds of machinery and the shouted conversations of the working crews behind them on the helipads.  
  _Gotcha_ , Raleigh thought.  
 “ _Chigau no? Yio ka warui ka?”_ he asked with a tiny bit of irritation.   
 He knew exactly how it felt to be embarrassed at being caught out. He’d spoken French to tell his brother that his PR Rep wasn’t what he expected and she’d caught him out, but nobody did embarrassment like the Japanese. Mako blushed right to her hairline and bowed several times.  
 “My apologies, Mr. Becket,” she switched from Japanese to English and back again with very little problems. “ _Takusan no koto wo kikimashita,”_ she said. _I’ve heard so much about you._  
 He would have continued the conversation if there wasn’t an interruption from someone shouting at them to hold the door. Raleigh did so and two men practically ran into the lift. Both were dripping wet and cradling sample jars containing what must’ve been smaller samples of Kaiju. The doors began to close.  
 Pentecost introduced them and after a small disagreement about names, they descended into bickering like an old married couple. Raleigh did his best to ignore them and stared at a point on the doors ahead of them. A brief discussion on the K-Science department and Raleigh was stepping through the doors to the place where the most amazing magic happened.   
 “Welcome to the Shatterdome.”  
Stepping through those doors was like coming home. He’d have preferred to have his brother by his side, but it wouldn’t happen. Getting some explanations from the Marshal about things here and there, like the War Clock and the three Jaegers he could see, Raleigh begged out of the rest of the tour in order to get some rest. He’d worked the wall for eight hours before being picked up. It had been, approximately, fourteen hours since then and he didn’t like the idea of being dead on his feet for the rest of it. If he was awake too long, he’d get crabby and snap at anyone who looked at him and so, Miss Mori escorted him to his quarters.

 A small, honest conversation with Mako and Raleigh really wanted to drop into sleep; exhaustion was setting in.  
 “You have a habit of deviating from standard combat techniques. You take risks that endanger yourself and your crew. I don’t think you’re the right man for this mission-“  
She caught herself and looked down.   
 “You may be right Miss Mori, but if it hadn’t been for the pilots using their own tactics instead of sticking to standard protocol, they’d all have been dead earlier than they were. When you’re in combat, you can’t control everything that happens no matter who or what you’re up against. In the end, it doesn’t matter what happens, because if you come home alive, you have to live with the consequences of those actions.” He stared down at a photograph of his brother and then looked straight up into her eyes.

 

  Tendo caught him just before dinner the day afterwards.  
 “Got a surprise coming in for you, man. You gotta be prepared though, because it’ll seem unreal, but I promise you, brother, it’s real.”

  Raleigh was sat at a table, picking at his food when Herc Hansen took the seat beside him. Herc’s son, Chuck, sat across from him and practically sneered at Raleigh.  
 “When was the last time you jockeyed, mate?”  
Raleigh could tell that this was going to go bad from the first word out of that boys mouth.   
 “Five years ago.” He stared the boy down, daring him to ask.  
 “What were you doing during that time? Something pretty important, I reckon.” He wanted to wipe that smirk off Chuck’s face.   
 “Construction.”  
 “Oh! Well, that’s...that’s great.” The sarcasm rolling off his tongue spiked Raleigh’s blood pressure.  
 “Can it, you cocky little shit! You have no fucking idea what I go through every day,” snarled Raleigh. There was not a sound heard in the mess hall. “Do you know what it’s like, knowing you have a sister and the only thing you can remember about her is her voice? The only thing you remember about your mother is her face? And you can’t remember your father because those things were stolen when your brother was ripped out of the conn-pod and took them with him when he died? My brother dying is on repeat in my head every fucking day. I feel everything; his pain, the fear and helplessness, and I watch me scream for him through his eyes as well as mine. So don’t you fucking **dare** make fun of that or I will drop you like a sack of Kaiju shit!”  
 Raleigh broke down into hysterical laughter, “And the best part? I had just been physically cleared from medical and they tried to stick me back into a simulator with someone else a month after my brother died, when I didn’t know if I was me or him. So yeah, I walked away! Your man, Pentecost can quote me from that day if you’d like, because I told him where to shove it. I will not sit down and take shit from arrogant brats who think they’re all high and mighty, throwing their anger and disgusting comments about mediocre pilots around like it doesn’t hurt anyone else, _just_ because mommy died. My apologies, Herc. We’ve all lost people and you’d do well to remember that and actually show some fucking respect for your predecessors or so help me God. If it weren’t for those Rangers you call mediocre, you wouldn’t fucking be here today!”  
 Getting back on track into his own mind, he realised he was standing over Chuck, like a titan. He looked around the room to see every pair of eyes on him.  
 “Anyone else got anything to say about our deceased pilots?”   
He expected more than a few, but what he didn’t expect was the applause. Apparently Chuck had been a complete ass to pretty much everyone he came into contact with and not one person had said a thing until Raleigh kicked off.  
 When the applause died down and Raleigh gave the room one more sweep and he had to do a double take. He felt the blood drain from his face and his knees go weak. He took a step forward and landed on his knees, heaving up the food he'd just eaten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very, very much to Jocelyn for letting me borrow Gipsy Danger's Strike Troop, collectively known as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Jocelyn is an amazing writer, she has made me cry multiple times. She's the author of the series, Generation K. I highly recommend giving it a read. I love the 3rd of the series, Aurora Borealis, which I've read more than once, it's that awesome!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies. Everything has been hectic for months and my laptop keeps crashing and it's so freaking frustrating!!!!  
> I shall try my hardest to update as often as possible, around the laptops antics.  
> Thanks for bearing with me!
> 
> I do NOT own Pacific Rim!!

  He was going to kill Tendo. He was going to murder him, oh, so very slowly. He was going to leave decapitation for last, but before that, he was going to torture him. Raleigh rose from the pits of his extremely dark thoughts and let Herc pull him up.  
 “You a’right, mate?”  
Raleigh could only point in _that_ direction. He met Herc’s eyes, pleading and grief ridden and then turned to meet _their_ eyes. He stepped forward and so did they. He took another step, and again. The next thing he knew, he had his arms around them. When they split, he ignored him for her. He stepped back, looked her up and down, nodding to himself.  
 “Hey, shithead,” Jazmine’s watery smile was the brightest he’d seen, ever.   
 “You grew up, how did you grow up so good? You’re beautiful, Jaz!” He hugged his sister again, “Gimme a few minutes with him, please?”  
As she stepped back, he turned to him. They stepped forward, a mirror of each other. Both raised their right hands to the left cheek of the other in unison. They used their left hands, again in unison, to slap at the other.  
 “Stop that!”   
 “You’re an asshole!”  
 “I thought you were dead.”  
Unison. It was the only thing they knew how to be. Beckets one, two and three. Together again.   
 “How?”   
 Jazmine let out a laugh, the deep kind that comes straight from the belly. They yanked each other into bone crushing hugs, and then hauled Jazmine in again. The room had shrunk until they were the only people in to room to themselves.

  “I’m guessing you guys heard what I said to smartass over there?” Feeling them nod, he continued, “I didn’t even know who I was, man. And they tried to get me into another Conn-pod, with a different co-pilot.” He took a shaky breath, retreated into himself and released them slowly, “How do I know if this is real? You guys know how many times I’ve dreamt something like this? Is this another dream? Please, tell me it’s not because I don’t think I’d be able to handle that.”  
 He couldn’t even tell what he was feeling at the time, because he didn’t know how to feel anymore. He was surprised to find that he wasn’t crying, and then Pentecost showed up and Yancy went apeshit!

  
  “Ranger,” Pentecost’s tone was sharp, but Yancy didn’t slow down, and then Jazmine joined in.   
 “Don’t you dare start your military bullshit with me, Mister. You didn’t even look for Yancy, my friends and I found him washed up on shore three weeks after the Knifehead incident, in cryostasis. And we couldn’t even bring him outta it until two and a half years later. We’ve been looking for Raleigh since then.” Jazmine was red from rage.  
 “That’s not the point, Miss Becket. The point is that Becket-1 failed to declare his living status with the PPDC when he woke up.” The Marshal looked from one sibling to the other, and then the third. He could feel the anger, the grief. He could feel the hate and he could feel the stares from everyone else in the room.  
 “Wait,” Raleigh laughed icily. “What I’m getting from this is that you knew about the cryostasis and that there was a chance that Yancy survived, and you still tried to put me in with someone else as well as leaving my brother out there for three fucking weeks?” This was bad! This was very, very bad. Raleigh was pissed, and Pentecost would have felt better if he’d shouted or thrown a punch. But he did neither. His back was ramrod straight, but on the outside, he looked calm to everyone else. Stacker could feel it though, the rage getting heavier and heavier until it evolved into a white hot fury that he’d never felt before. It bulldozed his shields and ran him over. He dropped to a knee.  
 “All this time, I’ve had a hole in my head, thinking he was gone and you knew there was a chance he could be alive.”   
 Stacker felt weightless. Glancing around, he saw why. People were grasping at tables, trying to stay on the ground. The only people that didn’t move were the Becket siblings, all three focused on him. Food, plates, anything not bolted down was coming off the ground and all because Raleigh was righteously furious.   
 None of the Becket’s had even noticed anything happening around them. Oldest and youngest bracketing the middle sibling in, making sure he was safe and comforted but nothing was going to get rid of that fury at Pentecost, and he knew it!  
 “If that Mark-3 you have isn’t Gipsy Danger, I won’t do it. If my sister and Tendo aren’t in LOCCENT, I won’t do it. If I have to put up with listening to your orders, you get to put up with Jazmine-with-a-grudge.” Raleigh grinned, showing way too many teeth, “And if my brother isn’t my co-pilot, I’ll destroy this place from the inside out, taking out every single piece of tech I can. Let’s face it, Marshal, I don’t have a lot of control over this and you need me more than I need you because I know Gipsy won’t let anyone other than a Becket back in the saddle. Oh, and you can get Trevin and Bruce in here, because I know they’re not dead and I’ve seen the way everyone stares at the doors of Bay-6. I know you have Romeo here too.  
 “What was supposed to happen, Marshal? You waited until the end of the war to declare my brother’s living as a possibility? What would have happened if he ended up elsewhere? Did Team Gipsy know about it?”

The rage was getting to the point where Stacker couldn’t think straight.   
 “That’s exactly what was supposed to happen. We didn’t want to get your hopes up. It was a prototype; we’d have found him one way or another. Team Gipsy had no idea; it was done directly before Knifehead without anyone else’s knowledge. The harness automatically disengages in certain circumstances. The suit is programmed to seal every opening and administers the shot as soon as the pilot’s vitals are lost, in case there’s any chance for survival.”  
 Feeling the anger directed at him from three different sources made Stacker lose all pretence of composure, no matter how small. He knew he was fighting a losing battle, especially because the Becket’s were stubborn, and we all know just how immensely stubborn and protective one Becket can be, never mind three of them.

Finally noticing the lack of gravity in the room, Raleigh set to putting people back on the ground as gently as possible, starting with the people that hadn’t pissed him off recently. Pentecost and Hansen Junior were dropped from five feet as soon as the Becket’s turned their backs and stalked out of the room. They got nods along the way, people showing their support. No one dared intrude on their personal space and anyone who saw them storm through the halls on their way to Raleigh’s bunk was quick to clear their path. Their tight jaws, clenched fists and hard, raging eyes telling everyone to steer clear lest they want their asses handed to them, Becket style.  
 On arrival at the bunk, the anger ratcheted up a notch thanks to the note attached to the door telling them that Raleigh’s stuff had been moved to family quarters, where he’d be able to share space with his siblings. He wanted to get them out of the eye of the Shatterdome and into a private place where they could finally break down and piece themselves back together after thinking everyone but themselves was dead for years. It had been an extremely taxing day; an emotional day. Something that very rarely happens for any Becket.


End file.
